Shasta LAFCO faces class-action lawsuit over studies

A Shasta County attorney today filed a class-action lawsuit against the county's local agency formation commission, saying it never completed legally mandated studies for most of the agency's clients while still accepting their money.

LAFCO is an agency that helps form cities and special districts within Shasta County and approves requests for boundary expansions and some annexations by those agencies. It's funded by contributions from cities, the county and special districts, which all have representatives on the agency's governing body.

The suit, filed by Jim Reed, centers on an ongoing complaint from LAFCO ratepayers that the agency didn't complete studies it should have by 2008. That complaint was tied to former Executive Director Amy Mickelson, who left her job with the agency in July after a "mutual agreement" that came during a mysterious closed-session personnel discussion.

"Here they are...almost six years behind what they should have been doing, and it's hard to imagine how they're going to catch up," Reed said today.

The suit says LAFCO still collected money from dozens of districts and government agencies, but didn't do studies for most of them.

"The Defendant's failure to prepare the...reports has severely damaged Plaintiffs by paying taxes and rate charges which money was misused by Defendant and by furthermore having a dysfunctional county government which has failed to comply with its legal obligations," the suit reads.

Reed filed the suit specifically on behalf of Fall River Mills resident Terry Briggs, an outspoken critic of LAFCO, as well as Robert Bratton, Sandra Jenson and Todd Brown, but it was also filed "on behalf of all taxpayers in Shasta County who are similarly situated."

Reed, who is a candidate for the third district of the state assembly, said since it's a class-action suit, if the suit prevails the actual money recovered likely would not be much for each person involved.

"Obviously, a recovery for any single taxpayer or ratepayer in this case is going to be basically minimal, but my hope is, you know, LAFCO has insurance, and obviously at this point in time the insurance company's going to have to get involved because they're going to have to pay for the defense of this action," he said.

Jim Underwood, LAFCO's legal counsel, said Tuesday, the day before the suit was filed, he was not aware it was coming.

"I . . . would not want to speculate concerning the likelihood or contents of any such action," he said. Reed also filed a claim last summer before filing the suit. That claim asked for $186,000, which Reed said is an estimate of how much was paid to LAFCO that should have gone to the uncompleted studies.

That was the second time he'd filed a claim against the agency, with one filed earlier on behalf of the Fall River Valley Community Services District seeking the return of some $41,000 spent on a study to expand the district's sphere of influence. LAFCO rejected that claim, but the district decided not to sue, citing a desire to move forward with other projects.

About Alayna Shulman

Alayna Shulman has worked as a reporter at the Record Searchlight since graduating from the University of Oregon in 2010. In that time, she has covered county government, breaking news, healthcare and more.